The Mistletoe Pretence
by The Alleycat Ulan
Summary: There's mistletoe so Allan and Djaq kiss. Will gets jealous, but of who? Will/Allan slash oneshot “The mistletoe was pretence,”


Written for my own Mistletoe Kiss Challenge; I really am a strange cookie aren't I?

Anyway it's a Will/Allan (haven't seen one of those in a while ay?) So it'll be interesting to see what kind of a response I get =S

**Warning: The pairing is Will/Allan, meaning there will be slash/boylove, don't like don't read, you have been warned. **

Have fun reading!

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Allan loved Christmas.

Everything about it was brilliant. Decorations, trees, presents, good food, snow, general all round good humour, mistletoe, the list went on. And in one way or another all these things worked in his favour.

Decorations hid mess. Something which he always seemed to cause a lot of, or at the very least was blamed for.

Trees were, well, trees. Allan figured they lent themselves to the atmosphere and so were worthy of recognition as an important part of the festive season.

Presents were just plain nice. To give as well as receive as he was learning.

Good food was a pleasant change from the usual scraps, no offence to Much, but just add the word 'Christmas' to the beginning of a food and it already tasted a million times better.

Snow was, at the risk of sounding uncharacteristically poetic, pretty he had to admit. It was rather nice to sit in the moonlight some nights and watch the snow slowly drift down from the heavens to softly blanket the earth.

Good humour generally meant a higher tolerance for his pranks and trickery. And a higher tolerance usually meant that there would be more, something Allan never tired of.

And mistletoe meant kisses.

And if hung in just the right place mistletoe meant lots of kisses, especially if one went about things carefully.

Which had led to Allan's 'spontaneous' placing of mistletoe right above the door of their hidden camp that. The said mistletoe had already led to a number of rather awkward moments between different outlaws, all of which Allan had watched with amusement from the safety of his bunk.

The truth of the matter was that from his bunk he had a clear view of who was coming and going, so of course he timed it so that if he left the camp he did it at a time when he could see that no one he didn't want to kiss was approaching. This practice had saved him from his own fair share of embarrassing situations, for example earlier on that day he had been about to leave his bunk when he saw Little John coming. No offence intended to John, but Allan decided to stay in his bunk until after the big man had entered.

Now Allan lay on his bunk, eyes glued on the door with anticipation. Djaq had left that morning with Much to gather herbs and Allan figured that they should be back any minute now. Sure enough a few minutes later the pair came into sight, Much leaving Djaq to go and talk to Robin who was crouched by the fire just outside.

Just as Djaq was about to cross the threshold, Allan vaulted from his bunk, earning an annoyed mutter from Will who was sitting on his own bunk which was below Allan's, carving another small trinket which he planned to give out to the children of the villages on Christmas day.

Djaq was somewhat startled when Allan practically threw himself across the camp at her, and she was even more surprised when he kissed her, rather eagerly, on the lips. She jumped backwards, breaking the kiss and Allan smirked. She hadn't been there when he'd put up the mistletoe and he doubted she knew about this particular English tradition.

"Mistletoe," he explained, pointing to the plant which hung above him, "When two people stand under it at Christmas time they have to kiss."

He laughed at the incredulous look on Djaq's face, and then upon feeling the hot heat of a glare on his back and having no doubts about from whom it was coming, he laughed harder.

Djaq shook herself like a bird shaking its feathers after being rained on and walked past Allan, who was still in the grips of hysterics, to her mini infirmary.

Clutching his stomach Allan staggered back towards his bunk and leant against it, looking down at Will who had switched his attention back to his carving. Or least appeared to have, but there was a distinctly reddish colouring to his ears and an angry, rough manner about the way he was now carving that betrayed him.

A cheeky smirk lit Allan's face at the prospect of more fun, this time in the form of torturing his best friend, "Aw, are you jealous?" he teased.

Will ignored him. Allan shrugged and clambered up onto his bunk, hanging his head over the side so ho could still look down at Will.

"Well, not bein' funny but it's not like you were fighting me for the privilege or anything," he continued to needled Will, "if you really feel that strongly about her, why not go and kiss her already. The mistletoe was just an excuse for me; I bet she'd have no problems kissing you."

When Will continued to ignore him Allan went on teasing him, "Or maybe," he wondered aloud watching carefully for the other's reaction, "It wasn't me you're jealous of?" he laughed, "Are you jealous of Djaq?"

Will got up and stalked outside. Allan watched him go, mentally shrugging, really he didn't have to be so sensitive about things, Allan had only been mucking around, his friend knew the truth well enough. They'd been through it enough times.

Chuckling to himself, he pulled his head back up and prepared to settle himself once again on his bunk to watch for more mistletoe related instances when a sound caught his attention.

Allan looked in the direction the sound had come from and found Djaq standing near the partition that separated her infirmary from the rest of the camp watching him with raised eyebrows.

"What?" Allan asked, spreading his hands as if in testimony of his innocence, "I was only teasing him," Djaq just continued to look at him with that same disapproving look, which evoked a stirring of guilt in Allan's mind. After another moment he gave in, "Fine," he sighed swinging down from his bunk to land nimbly on the ground.

It was because he caved in to Djaq that what happened next actually happened. Having climbed down from his bunk Allan had lost his advantage of being able to see who was coming through the doorway of the camp until it was too late.

The person who was coming through the door of the camp was in fact Will, whose height caused him to stoop slightly as he came through the doorway. If he hadn't suddenly found himself in such an awkward position (the position being that the fact that he had stooped had bought him down to the perfect height so that when Allan ran into him their lips crashed together and both were too shocked to have the sense to move) Will would have said that the only reason he had come back inside was because he had forgotten…something…right now he couldn't really remember what it had been in the first place…

Djaq cleared her throat and the noise was enough to bring the boys back to their sense enough to jump apart, although they did so a little too slowly to fool her. But she just laughed and disappeared back into her infirmary.

Allan and Will continued to stare at each other in surprise, before Will followed Djaq's example and cleared his throat went to his bunk. Once there he stared at the small assortment of tools that hung, making sure his back was to Allan so the other man couldn't see the red tinge that was spreading across his face.

After a moment Will took a hammer, still not entirely sure that was what he had come inside for to begin with, and went back outside, not looking at Allan, who was still standing by the door, as he passed. Allan watched him leave and then went outside himself heading in the opposite direction, deciding that maybe he needed some fresh air.

When he returned later that evening the mistletoe no longer hung above the door. In fact the entire subject of mistletoe and kissing were neglected in the usual evening chat over the fire during dinner. Not that anyone seemed to mind, it appeared that everyone was more than willing to forget the day's events and wondered why they hadn't thought of taking the obnoxious plant down sooner.

It was dark a few hours later when Allan climbed into bed, but not so dark that he failed to notice that something hung in the roof directly above his head. Frowning he reached up and pulled it down, then upon identifying the offending foliage, he leant over the edge of the bed and poked the apparently sleeping Will.

Will opened his eyes, thus betraying his pretence and looked up at Allan questioningly. Allan raised his eyebrows and held the mistletoe out where Will could see it, "Does this mean you forgive me?" he asked.

Will grinned at him cheekily and gave a shrug, "What makes you think it was me?" he asked innocently.

Allan sighed inwardly; maybe he was rubbing off on the boy, but he was going to play along, because he always liked where these things led, "Well, who else would want to kiss me?" he teased, dangling the mistletoe above his head he puckered his lips.

To his surprise Will reached up and kissed him. When he pulled back Allan raised an eyebrow, "Are you really as shy and quiet as you seem to be or is that just a pretence?" he asked amusedly.

Will smiled at him and Allan was surprised at just how much it warmed his heart to see a smile on those lips, "Wouldn't you have just that bit more fun finding it out for yourself?"

"Are you saying that you only kissed me because of the mistletoe?" Allan feigned hurt.

"I'm saying that maybe you should find out for yourself," Will laughed softly, so as not to wake the others.

Allan leant down so their faces were close and Will blushed despite himself. Allan smirked, he had come to know the other young man well, almost too well, "The mistletoe was pretence," he said knowingly.

Will raised an eyebrow and tilted his head upwards so their foreheads and noses touched and their breath whispered on each other's lips, "Do you think so?"

"I know so," Allan whispered, "And I can prove it,"

"And how might you go about that?" Will challenged, gazing intensely into Allan's eyes trying to out-fox the other outlaw.

"Well, first…" Allan said, pressing his face even closer so that their lips brushed, just barely and then he pulled back abruptly to hold the mistletoe between them, "I'd start by getting rid of this," Allan flicked it away into the darkness, "And then I'd tease you some more," He pulled their face close again gently brushing his lips over the young carpenter's lips in feather soft touches. Will barely held in his whimper of disappointment at the soft teasing contact as Allan smirked against his lips, "And then, you know what I'd do?"

Will gave up, "What would you do?" he asked coyly. He should have known by now anyway, no one won this kind of game against Allan unless he wanted them to.

Allan sat up and swung down abruptly from his bunk landing softly on the ground grinning in triumph, "I'd suggest a nice, long walk in the forest by the moonlight," he held out a hand to Will, who responded by reaching out his hand to take it only to have Allan pull his hand away at the last second, "But only if you admit the mistletoe was a pretence," Allan said mocking the stern manner in which a parent may present a condition to their child.

Will sighed but smiled all the same, "The mistletoe was pretence."

"Good boy," Allan replied with a smile, "And now because you're such a good boy we can go for that walk," laughing he took Will's hand and pulled him to his feet, "A nice, fun midnight frolic in the forest without a sprig of mistletoe in sight, how does that sound?"

"Fun," Will allowed, "But …" he fished in his pocket and took out a fresh piece of foliage and twirled it in his fingers admiring it in the silvery moonlight, "I rather like mistletoe."

Allan looked at him thoughtfully as they walked along; damn the boy was full of surprises and hell, that's why he loved him so much anyway. He grinned broadly at Will, mischief lighting his eyes, "Well if that's the case, let's find us some more."

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